Search brisbanetimes:

Search in:

Standard Chartered to pay $US327m to settle Iran probe

British bank Standard Chartered will pay the United States $US327 million to settle charges it violated US sanctions on Iran as well as on Myanmar, Libya and Sudan, the US Treasury announced Monday.

US authorities said the bank had stripped messages on financial transfers routed through US banks of information that would show the beneficiaries were businesses and entities that fell under US sanctions.

The fines from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and other US federal and local regulators took to $US667 million the total the bank has been charged for sanctions violations.

In August the New York state banking watchdog fined Standard Chartered $US340 million in the same investigation, saying it hid 60,000 transactions with proscribed Iranian clients worth $US250 billion over 10 years.

"Today's settlement is the result of an exhaustive interagency investigation into Standard Chartered Bank's attempts to violate US sanctions programs through the 'stripping' from payment messages of critical information," said OFAC Director Adam Szubin in a statement.

The sanctions avoidance involved mainly the bank's London head office and its branch in Dubai, which masked the details of messages so US authorities would not see the real identity of those sending and receiving the payments.

"As a result, millions of dollars of payments were routed through US banks for or on behalf of sanctioned parties in apparent violation of US sanctions," OFAC said in a statement.

OFAC added that the fine also covered eight apparent violations of US sanctions on druglords.